Maggie Gyllenhaal talks about her pregnancy

Expectant actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, 28 talked to People magazine about pregnancy and her thoughts on motherhood. Gyllenhaal’s first child with fiancé Peter Sarsgaard, 35 is due this October. Here are some excerpts from the interview:

You’ve got a slew of movies coming out. Are you going to take some time off when the baby arrives?I know I’m going to have to take at least a few months off and then I’m really going to play it by ear. I have no way of knowing what it’s going to feel like to be a mother. I’m trying not to anticipate too much what I’m going to do. You know, I’m going to see.

Do you and Peter have any feeling that there’s a race to the altar before the baby is born?No (laughs). We’ve got a lot to do before the baby.

You grew up in L.A. but you live in New York City. Where do you plan to raise the baby?I don’t think I would want to raise my child in L.A. Maybe it’s just wanting to do it differently than the way I was raised. It’s just so hard in L.A. to drive everywhere. It’s hard to have a lot of freedom as a kid ’cause you can’t just go run around outside as you would in the woods and you also can’t, when you’re 15, hop on a subway and get somewhere by yourself. It’s kind of a little bit constricting.

Have you asked your mom for any advice on having a baby?The one thing that I’ve realized is that instinctively I know it’s my job not to talk too much about this baby. It’s such a funny world and the baby’s not even a grown human yet, so that’s my first job as a mother – to protect just the baby from that.